Heh

"Tell someone you've crashed your Ferrari or your Lambo, and they will laugh. Tell them you've crashed your Aston, and they will be sad. A crashed Fezza is a crashed Airbus. A crashed Aston is like a downed Concorde. It hurts. Astons trump our inner Daily Mail. We like them. We like the people who drive them.

Maybe it's because they're grey. Maybe it's because the engine's in the front, where it bloody well belongs; I don't know. But I do know this: an Aston is the only expensive, fast car that miserable, cruel, British b******* actually like"

Although I was singled out for abuse twice the last couple of weeks. Stopped at lights, car in quiet mode I add, Mrs Yeti in the pax seat and roof off. White van man screams W*NKER at me as he passes the other way, no provocation.

And something similar passing some builders up a scaffold, but this time it was '6 litre W*NKER' which was slightly more amusing. She was quite shocked and perhaps a little hurt, to me it's just envy from sad men who failed to achieve, and continue to fail daily.

there's a lot of truth in the Aston aspect - after seven years of Mercedes SLs - try to get out a side road and they nearly tail-end each other to close the gap (even if I just wanted to cut through their lane & turn right) - then I got the V8V. They stop to wave me out. Even old people tell me it sounds great. I came up to a mini roundabout last week, I wanted to go left but a bin lorry coming from the other direction already had right of way to turn across my nose - he slowed down & waved me to go in front.

It's going to take some time to get used to this

He's right about people who won't move out of your way on motorways... I got stuck behind some prick in a Skoda Fabia VRS the other week doing exactly 70 and sitting in the outside lane, refusing to move over

I'm sure it'd be worse in a red Ferrari spider or an orange Lambo

However, the 996/911 with the roof off... not a peep, it inspires no envy at all - people recognise it as a ten grand car I suppose, which is fine.

There are dheads everywhere sadly.

+1. Less than an hour ago waiting at some lights in Exeter (roof down) - I could hear some talking to the left inner lane, looked over and there was Mr. Whitevanman and his mate both with big smiles and giving me the . Gave it the full beans away from the lights, they caught me up at the next set and were laughing their heads off and even more thumbs up - silly I know but it made my day and theirs.

So that's why you're enlargin your engine..............so when that happens again, you can reply 'nope, 6.5 litre W*NKER !'

I remember last summer getting in the car and as I'm putting the hood down I see 3 girls a distance away and hear one say to her friends 'f*ck me, that's a f*cking aston martin you know' - I only realise how many comments are made when the hood is down

I have to say I've rarely if ever heard or seen any -ve comments or reactions to my Astons and however much poetic licence Clarkson likes to use, his basic sentiment in this article is actually sound

Whilst a lot of what he says has some truth to it, he has written and said so many vitriolic things over the years - sometimes based on factors people have no control over - that it's hardly surprising that he will get abuse. AA Gill, whom he mentions, made a point of insulting Norman Wisdom after he died, yet I don't see him condemning that.

I see hypocrisy being as large a problem as anything, i.e. it's okay if I'm saying something potentially offensive as it's 'entertainment' but when the shoe is on the other foot one has to take to the soapbox and make a sweeping statement about the state of society based on a few individuals.